Content 2.0

Content 2.0

How inspiring content engages customers in an age of infinite change

Hello and welcome to Content 2.0.

We created this booklet because branded content* is an ongoing hot topic for the 21st century and we wanted to collect together the most relevant research, thoughts and opinions we’ve found into one place, to create an easy-to-use reference guide for our current and future clients.

Few can doubt that the media environment is changing rapidly. Technology and familiarity mean that customers are filtering out marketing messages (see page xx), the explosion in media options available, fuelled by the penetration of broadband internet access means customers are finding it increasingly difficult to find reliable information, entertainment and inspiration (page xx). This has led to an explosion in word-of-mouth recommendations from friends and family, fuelled by social networks online (page xx), with the result that marketers and their agencies are searching for new ways of working and new ways of engaging their customers (page xx).

Ironically, in this message-rich, time-poor age, customers seem more willing than ever to devote their precious leisure time and energy in engaging with brands. The internet, TV-on-demand and timeshifting have given consumers total control over their media, and they expect it for free, too. This means that consumers are actively seeking out engaging, rewarding content that they can spend time with.

We believe this is because people have always told, and listened to, stories (page xx). We believe that, in an age of media proliferation and fragmentation, customers are searching for authenticity in communications, for brands and conversations they can trust (page xx).We believe that customers expect a consistently fulfilling experience from brands in whichever medium they choose, an experience which utilises the best attributes of each medium (page xx).

We’ve been telling our clients’ brand stories successfully for 25 years. (We’ve included some examples on pages xx-xx.)

Since the end of the last century, moving from pure printed communication to integration across multiple platforms and media.

We hope that you enjoy this booklet, an example of, we think, inspiring content.

The Redwood New Business Team.

* we don’t really like the term “branded content”, but no-one’s yet come up with a better phrase to describe what we do.

SECTION ONE:

The Media Environment: what other companies are saying…

Jim Stengel, Chief Marketing Officer, Procter & Gamble

“What we really need is a mindset shift. A mindset shift that will make us relevant to today’s consumers. A mindset shift from ‘telling and selling’ to building relationships.”

“I think we’ve moved from saying, “We want great television advertising”, to “We want great ideas that connect with consumers as we build our brands, take us to a different place emotionally.”

“We must adopt the mentality of permission marketing and creative advertising that is so appealing that consumers welcome it into their lives. Branded content – available in and across the channels of their choice – can offer the value consumers are looking for.”

“We undertook a study at P&G of 15 categories in 10 countries. We found that brands with the highest market share have the highest levels of trust relative to the competition.”

“At P&G, we’re learning that if we want to engage people with our brand messages it has to be on their terms. We have to add value to their social relationships. That means we have to listen to them to understand what is meaningful to them. Are we:

enhancing their social currency? Providing helpful information? Improving the shopping experience? Or entertaining them, while we build equity?

Customers are filtering out marketing messages

“I know half of my advertising budget is wasted, I just don’t know which half.” While the attribution of the quote is in doubt – was it Lord Leverhulme or John Wanamaker? – that it was true a century ago and even more true today cannot be disputed.

It doesn’t seem to matter which medium advertisers use, consumers will make a concerted effort to avoid being interrupted by advertising.

For example, 81% of broadband internet users have some form of pop-up ad blocking software installed1 and 77% of internet users are so annoyed by pop-up ads that they consider it likely or very likely that they would never visit the offending web site again.2

The rise of the Digital Video Recorders (DVR) has allowed customers to avoid television more efficiently than before, with one survey of DVR users finding that 87% said they used the skip function “frequently”3. In the US, at least 17% of homes have a DVR, while Sky+ passed 10% of UK households in 2007 and expects 25% penetration of UK households by 2010. So while an estimated total of 3-5% of TV commercials are currently skipped, the signs are ominous.

In fact it is the US government that operates the world’s most popular ad-blocking system: the National Do Not Call Registry protects over 107 million Americans from unsolicited telemarketing phone calls. This number constitutes just under half of all US adults.

Customers are, however, interested in messages that are directly relevant to them, as the runaway success of Google’s AdWords proves.

Branded content provides information, entertainment and inspiration in the medium of a customer’s choice and creates a relevance to their experience, meaning it is much more likely to be a welcome message than an intrusion.

Independent research has consistently proven that customer magazines, for example, are the most welcome form communication a customer can experience.

1 Source: Forrester Research2 Source: Hostway3 Source: In-Stat

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Inserts

Telephone calls

Leaflets, circulars, free publications

Mobile messaging

TV/radio ads

Newspaper/magazine ads

Direct mail

Emails

People marketing/ demonstrations

Interactive TV

Customer magazines

Relevant Neither Not relevant

Assessment of relevance of direct communications received

Source: DMA/Future FoundationBase: 1065 respondents – 3183 received communications

A number of sectors have already harnessed the relevance of branded content in their communication strategies.

For example, it has long been thought that much car advertising works to cure “buyer’s remorse” – that, having made such an expensive purchase, customers seek out advertising to vindicate their choice. In our experience, this is just one of the many successful applications of customer magazines, with 62% of Land Rover owners agreeing that OneLife magazine adds to their enjoyment of owning a Land Rover, and 54% of Volvo owners agreeing that LIV magazine adds to their enjoyment of owning a Volvo. As well as this, 68% of Volvo owners agree that receiving LIV makes them feel valued.

For many of our titles, customers are actively seeking out our clients’ messages, for example, 76% of Your Family readers said they would go to an Early Learning Centre (where the magazine is distributed) solely to pick up a copy of Your Family.

Media fragmentation is making it harder than ever to engage customers

With more TV and radio channels than ever before, the explosive growth of the internet and the incursion of mobile phones into everyday life, there are more media than ever before fighting for a customer’s attention, but there are no extra hours in their day. It is thought that as long ago as 1971, Herbert Simon coined the phrase ‘the Attention Economy’ to describe marketing’s current scarcest resource.

Customer attention is at a greater premium than ever before because simply finding customer eyeballs is not sufficient to sell product – although this is challenging enough – customers must also be engaged in order for brand messages to cut through.

In an environment where every second of customer attention is hotly contested and highly expensive, the advertiser might think that creating their own branded media would be an exercise in futility. In fact, research proves the opposite is the case: that advertiser created media is a fantastically cost-effective method of gaining attention :

15

20

22

28

14

Readers spend an average of 25 minutes with the magazine and a majority read half or more

20

23

19

14

12

6

3

How long spent in total looking at or reading the magazine?

Under 5 mins

5 - 10 mins

10 - 20 mins

20 - 30 mins

30 - 1hr

1 - 2 hrs

More than 2 hrs

(2928)

%How much did you read of the last ____ magazine?

All of it

Most of it

About half

A little

None of it

(2928)

57%

Source: Advantage Study

In our experience, the ability of branded content to provide real value for a customer’s time is one its greatest strengths.

For example, 76% of Boots Health and Beauty readers rate it as either “excellent” or “very good”; and the magazine is read, on average, for 35 minutes.

While, 75% of Land Rover owners agree that OneLife magazine is an interesting read, with 45% spending at least 20 minutes reading it.

And 81% of Your Family readers say they really enjoyed the content, and 94% read the whole magazine or nearly all of it, even though three-quarters of them read no other parenting magazine!

Perhaps the best demonstration of the value that customers place on branded content is the finding that customer magazines are the most likely to be kept for reference out of all marketing materials.

Respondents filing information for further useProportion as percentage of overall total volume

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%

Telephone calls

Television/radio ads

Inserts

People marketing/ demonstations

Interactive TV

Mobile messaging

Newspaper/magazine ads

Leaflets, circulars & free publications

E-mails sent to you

Mail addressed to you

Customer magazines

Source: DMABase: 1065 respondents – 3183 received communications

The emergence of social networks and user generated content

The rapid growth of MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and other social network communities, coupled with the rise of blogging and YouTube and other user generated content, has greatly affected the ways advertisers are able to talk to their audience.

Advertisers can no longer control brand messages and customer perceptions because customers are able to broadcast their own ideas and opinions, on a global basis and at the touch of a button.

And it seems this word-of-mouth marketing is more important to customers than ever. As Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, says, “there are plenty of advertising executives who think that precisely because of the sheer ubiquity of marketing these days, word-of-mouth appeals have become the only kind of persuasion most of us respond to any more.”

Research statistics confirm the importance of word-of-mouth to marketing communications: two of every three consumer decisions are primarily influenced by word of mouth4, nine out of ten consumers say that word of mouth is the most reliable, trustworthy source of ideas and information on products and services5 and three out of every four consumers say they don’t believe that advertisements tell the truth6.

4 McKinsey 5 NOP World6 Yankelovich and Partners

Because branded content is both welcomed and valued by customers, they develop a bonded relationship with advertisers and become more vociferously loyal. From our own experience, customers reading branded magazine become far more effective brand ambassadors than non-readers.

For example, 81% of Boots Health & Beauty readers say they recommend Boots to others, compared with 47% of non-readers. While, 77% of your M&S readers say they recommend M&S to others compared with 38% of non-readers.

Branded content can not only influence customer conversations, but even directly inspire them, as we discovered when we found that 39% of readers of Volvo’s magazine, LIV, talked to someone about Volvo as a direct result of reading the magazine.

With this in-built ‘water cooler effect’, it is perhaps unsurprising that branded content is passed on to customers’ friends and family more than any other medium.

The breakdown of traditional marketing agency boundaries

These radical changes to the media environment are causing anxiety in many sectors of the marketing communications industry.

In response to this anxiety, the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) commissioned think tank The Future Foundation to conduct and statistical and qualitative analysis amongst its advertising agency membership into how they believed the future of their marketing communications would unfold. The result was a report entitled ‘The Future of Advertising and Agencies: A 10 Year Perspective’, more details of which can be found here: http://www.futurefoundation.net/press_display.php?id=51

0.0% 0.5% 1.0% 1.5% 2.0% 2.5% 3.0% 3.5% 4.0% 4.5%

Telemarketing

Interactive TV

Leaflets, circulars and freepublications

Inserts

Direct Mail

PeopleMarketing/Demonstrations

Television or radioadvertising

Emails

Mobile Messaging

Newspaper and magazinedisplay advertising

Customer magazines

Whole of the past yearLast time

Source: DMA/Future Foundation Base:1835

The main finding was that media owners of all kinds, including online search, all networks, gaming environments and interactive digital TV, will be integrating brands directly into content and editorial.

The report predicts that editorial, by commercial providers such as contract publishers, and by consumers themselves, will account for between 35% and 40% of all marketing communications activity by 2016. The diagram below demonstrates the direction advertising agencies believe that communications will change.

The Future Foundation recommended that: “Agencies will need to take on multiple roles such as:

1. Agency as media brand owner2. Agency as joint venture partner3. Agency as content collaborator4. Agency as programme producer5. Agency as network creator6. Agency as data provider7. Agency as data aggregator”

And that: “ If agencies don’t take these opportunities there will be tremendous implications in terms of their relationships with clients, their remuneration packages and their very existence.”

We believe that, because we already supply these – and more – services to our clients, branded content agencies are uniquely well placed to take advantage of the continuing changes in the media environment.

Conclusion

It’s clear that it is becoming increasingly difficult to engage customers using traditional methods, and we hope we have shown why branded content is particularly effective in meeting these challenges. The next section of this booklet deals with how branded content is able to connect so strongly with customers.

SECTION TWO:

Challenges and Opportunities: what other companies are saying…

John Hayes, Chief Marketing Officer, American Express

“Fact is: TV ratings and impact are decreasing. We as advertisers are paying more to reach less. The landscape is changing. This is the time of a new, complex world of communications in which brands need to look for innovative ways to get messages across in a manner that will be truly effective. It’s about engaging customers and initiating a relationship.”

In 1994, American Express spent 80% of its marketing budget on TV. In 2004, this figure was 35%.

“To me, the challenge is not about awareness, the challenge is engagement”

“There are conventions that, frankly, we don’t buy into. Product placement is of no interest. To pay a film to have our product in it doesn’t serve our needs. We’re talking to people about producing content, and not so much from a product-placement standpoint. We want to look at what unique content can do.”

“I think there’s a lot of people focused on how bring entertainment and marketing together. The fact is, in 2003, consumers spent more on buying media – DVDs, pay-per-view – than advertisers spent on advertising; that’s telling you something. Consumers aren’t just consuming, they’re willing to pay for entertainment. The more that trend continues, the more marketers need to figure out how to reach those people and move our product.”

“Brands are not being built on advertising. You’re seeing this with more and more companies. If you fly JetBlue, you talk about the experience. That’s how you build brands today, through experiences.”

“The fragmentation of the population is going to continue to grow, so we’re going to see more selective ways of creating dialogues and engaging people, but I think the basic themes are going to stay the same. People are going to look for what entertains them. Ultimately, it’s going to be about creating experiences for people.”

SECTION TWO:

Challenges and Opportunities: what other companies are saying…

John Hayes, Chief Marketing Officer, American Express

“Fact is: TV ratings and impact are decreasing. We as advertisers are paying more to reach less. The landscape is changing. This is the time of a new, complex world of communications in which brands need to look for innovative ways to get messages across in a manner that will be truly effective. It’s about engaging customers and initiating a relationship.”

In 1994, American Express spent 80% of its marketing budget on TV. In 2004, this figure was 35%.

“To me, the challenge is not about awareness, the challenge is engagement”

“There are conventions that, frankly, we don’t buy into. Product placement is of no interest. To pay a film to have our product in it doesn’t serve our needs. We’re talking to people about producing content, and not so much from a product-placement standpoint. We want to look at what unique content can do.”

“I think there’s a lot of people focused on how bring entertainment and marketing together. The fact is, in 2003, consumers spent more on buying media – DVDs, pay-per-view – than advertisers spent on advertising; that’s telling you something. Consumers aren’t just consuming, they’re willing to pay for entertainment. The more that trend continues, the more marketers need to figure out how to reach those people and move our product.”

“Brands are not being built on advertising. You’re seeing this with more and more companies. If you fly JetBlue, you talk about the experience. That’s how you build brands today, through experiences.”

“The fragmentation of the population is going to continue to grow, so we’re going to see more selective ways of creating dialogues and engaging people, but I think the basic themes are going to stay the same. People are going to look for what entertains them. Ultimately, it’s going to be about creating experiences for people.”

The customer is in charge of the conversation

As we have seen, the new media environment has empowered customers as never before: the customer is now in charge of any interaction a brand wishes to have with them. The solution to this challenge is to treat the customer not as a mere consumer, but instead as an equal, to gain and retain their trust as a brand now requires a new set of tools and a new way of thinking.

Indeed, research indicates that customer trust is at an all time low. The fall of Enron, Worldcom and others, shortfalls in pension funds and publicity surrounding executive compensation packages have a challenging customer culture not seen since 1978 and the three day week.

Craig Wood, president of Yankelovich Research says, “Consumer trust simply can’t go much lower.”

His wide research review found some disturbing statistics: 80% of the public believes corruption is endemic in the corporate world and that executive greed and immorality are the top causes of current economic woes.7 86% of US and European consumers are less trusting of companies than they were five years ago.8 66% of Americans believe that ‘If the opportunity arises, most businesses will take advantage of the public, if they feel they are not likely to be found out.’9

This decrease in trust often leads to negative effects on a company’s bottom line. The Edelman 2005 Trust barometer found that 80% of people stop buying from a company when its trustworthiness is questioned. Even more worryingly for businesses, 33% of disaffected customers proactively campaign against untrustworthy companies on the internet.

There is sometimes a tendency to believe that traditional advertising has the power to combat this issue, but that may well not be the case. Further findings from Yankelovich Research show that 65% of consumers feel ‘bombarded’ by advertising, 60% have ‘a much more negative opinion’ of marketing and advertising now than a few years, 60% believe that the amount of advertising is ‘out of control,’ and 48% believe it is their right to decide whether or not to receive advertising messages.

We have found that branded content creates very positive feelings of trust with customers. For example, 70% of readers of Volvo’s LIV magazine said that the magazine ‘has a positive effect on my image of Volvo’, 68% saying it made them feel valued as a customer. We found this reaction time and again, across different audiences and sectors: 70% of Your M&S readers believe that ‘M&S cares for my needs’ compared with 29% of non-readers, and Boots Health and Beauty shows similar results, with a 33% improvement in ‘cares for my needs’ and a 22% improvement in agreement with the statement ‘Boots gives the impression it listens to its customers’.

77 Source: Gallop, 200288 Source: Datamonitor, 2006 9 Source: Yankelovich Research 2004

The customer expects value from marketing messages

With the multitude of media options now available to customers, their expectations have been raised; as we have seen, they will no longer tolerate being interrupted with simple sales pitches. In a world where marketing messages are oversupplied and easily avoided, companies can achieve standout only by providing value in their communications. Messages must either inform, entertain or inspire, or preferably, all perform all three at once.

A study conducted by the Future Foundation for the Direct Marketing Association, illustrates that customers perceive branded content to be the most effective way to deliver an entertaining experience.

Interestingly, brands receive a ‘halo effect’ from entertaining and inspiring their customers that reflects strongly in the emotional response to the brand providing content.

51

45

34

64

42

Projected Leadership

Emotional Affinity

Difference

Value

Popularity

40

38

27

53

40

Magazine%

Control%

Customermagazine effect

11

7

7

11

2

Source: APAAdvantageStudy

Not only does branded content have significant positive effects on ‘softer’ measures of brand efficacy, but also it has been proven to instigate action from customers.

Further research shows that branded content also delivers extraordinary levels of active response: when a customer responds to a communication with anything from a request for more information to a immediate sale.

At Redwood, we pride ourselves on significantly exceeding industry standards in all areas, and active response is no exception. For example, Land Rover OneLife magazine’s active response rate of 52% is two-thirds greater than average; while 54% of Boots Health and Beauty customers buy a product as a direct result of seeing it featured in the magazine and 44% try a new product featured or advertised in the magazine.

Methods that elicit buying, visiting store or showroom, asking for further information or filing

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%

Inserts

Telephone calls

Mobile messaging

Leaflets, circulars & free publications

Television/radio ads

Newspaper/magazine ads

Mail addressed to you

E-mails sent to you

People marketing/ demonstations

Interactive TV

Customer magazines

Source: DMA/Future FoundationBase: 1065 respondents – 3183 received communications

44

78

45

30

23

Level of active response%

Study average

Retail sector

Membership associations

Automotive sector

Finance sector

Base: Magazine sample, 17 titles (2928)

The customer is busy – make the most of their valuable time

A further finding from the IPA/Future Foundation report illustrates this. The report found that 92% of advertising agencies felt that “navigating consumer choice and complexity” would shape future interactions between brands and customers in the age of anywhere, anytime media.

This, of course, is good news for creators of branded content. As the graph below demonstrates, for a well-known supermarket, the trusted relationship formed with customers means they come to rely on some brands for this navigation.

And we’ve found similar, and often even better results with our own magazines. For example, 47% of Boots Health and Beauty readers say the magazine gives them lots of ideas of new things to buy, with customers who read the magazine 23% more likely to agree with the statement “Boots is a company I always buy from or stick with” than non-readers. For Your M&S readers, this difference in loyalty between readers and non-readers is a staggering 56%.

Conclusion

The change in media environment has changed customer expectations and behaviour. The traditional media model of interruption is breaking down and one of engagement is emerging. Customers are expecting a fair exchange of value between brands’ communications and their attention, and this is where branded content’s ability to give information, entertainment and inspiration is most effective.

Branded content is evolving to stay ahead of even these changes. We call this evolution Content 2.0.

Base: Shopped at brand ’s store in last 7 daysSource : APA

26 %

28 %

27%

3 4%

3 8%

31%

0% 10% 20 % 30 % 40 %

I ha ve a c los erre lation ship w ith this

store tha n I did 1 2m on ths ago

It's the bes t su pe rm arketthe re is

A su perm arke t I go out ofm y w ay to sho p a t

Do NOT Read Supermark et M agazine Read Superma rket M agazine

SECTION THREE:

Content 2.0: what other companies are saying…

Chuck Fruit, Senior Vice-President, Coca-Cola

“It’s more important than ever to have focus in consumer communication and to integrate this across all different consumer touch points. We are now developing new forms of relationships with content providers….”

THE IMPORTANCE OF STORYTELLING

Most anthropologists agree that around 50,000 years ago, human evolution increased at an unprecedented rate; in fact, humans have evolved more in the last 50,000 years than in the previous 5 million years. In this short time, we have developed the ability to think abstractly, plan for the future and innovate new solutions to problems. There is one simple factor behind this incredible step-change in behaviour: language, and central to that is our desire to tell stories. As Reynolds Price said in A Palpable God:

“A need to tell and hear stories is essential to the species Homo Sapiens – second in necessity only to nourishment and before love and shelter. Millions survive without love or home, almost none in silence: the opposite of silence leads quickly to narrative, and the sound of story is the dominant sound of our lives.”

The story as teacher

From the Bible to the Quran to the Bhagavad Gita, the world’s major religions have used stories to explain where we came from, why we are here and how the Earth, Sun, moon and stars came into being. Wherever there is a gap in human knowledge, story will be used to fill it.

Stories are a way to give us practice for everyday situations, they are a way for us to learn lessons without having to endure the consequences of first making a mistake. Nowhere is the usefulness and importance of stories as teaching tools more obvious than at bedtime: at least two-thirds of Western children are read to each night10, listening to tales that often incorporate simple moral lessons and examples of good citizenship. And a good thing this tradition is popular: reading children bedtime stories has been shown to increase their emotional intelligence, literary skills and their ability to think critically11.

Aesop’s Fables are known throughout the world as a means of giving children a moral education using language and scenarios they can easily comprehend. Indeed, the Fables express basic human truths, regardless of cultural differences, and are known around the world in almost every language: Hungarians say savanyu a szolo for the English phrase “sour grapes” (from the fable “The Fox and the Grapes”); in China, they say, “Grapes are sour because you cannot reach them” and in Sweden, “Sour, the fox said, about the rowanberries”12.

Gilbert Meilaender, a theological ethicist, believes that stories deliver and plant truths within us more deeply and effectively than any other mode of expression. This, he says, is because stories “teach us by indirection”: that is, stories “show us the good and lead us to desire it, instead of simply knowing about it”. Clearly, the best way to persuade someone to a course of action is let them come to the right conclusion themselves.

10 YouGov research for Starbucks 200611 “Ways with Words: Language, life, and work in communities and classrooms”, Brice-Heath, Shirley, Stanford, 1983.12 “Made to Stick: why some ideas take hold and others come unstuck” by Chip and Dan Heath, Random House 2007.

Storytelling and memory

It is commonly agreed that the prefrontal cortex of the brain – which is disproportionately large in humans compared to other primates – is responsible for that quantum leap in evolution; this area mediates, in close proximity, attention, the storage of memories and language.

No doubt many of us are aware of the standard memory technique for recalling lengthy abstract information (for example telephone numbers) is to create a story and imagery based around those details, to give them meaning and solidity. This technique was invented by the Greek poet Simonides in 516 BC is called mnemonics after the Greek god of memory.

Simonides was a lyrical poet, employed to create sweeping odes for his patrons, combining vivid mental imagery with stirring rhetoric. One day, Simonides was extolling the virtues of his patron, Scopas, who had won a chariot race that afternoon. The poet was called out of the banqueting hall to receive a message, and in the meantime, the roof of the hall collapsed crushing all inside. As the attendees were unrecognisable, Simonides was asked by the authorities if he could the names of those present, the poet found that not only did he remember all their names, but because he had incorporated them into his stories, he could remember exactly where they sitting.It was his ‘Eureka’ moment, and he developed the science of memory that is still taught today.

Story as decision maker

In the modern world we are afflicted with what Alvin Toffler termed information overload: you may already know, for example, that this Sunday’s New York Times will contain as much information as the average 18th century human would encounter in a lifetime.

There has been an explosion of messages in both our leisure time, where entertainment media jostle for our time and attention, and in our working lives, where PDAs, email and mobiles keep us constantly available for interruption; not only this, but the entire sum of human knowledge is rapidly being made available for all the world to enjoy, via the internet.

Psychologist Barry Schwartz called this “The Paradox of Choice”, and in his book of the same name details the surprising ways in which an abundance of options leaves human beings with unrealistically high expectations and the tendency to blame themselves for any and all failures. He says that, in the long term, we become paralysed by the anxiety and stress that comes from the possibility of making of the wrong choice.

The natural reaction to this kind of ‘option paralysis’ is to pursue a strategy of ‘satisficing’: a portmanteau coined by political scientist Herbert Simon, as a combination of the words ‘satisfy’ and ‘suffice’. Satisficing describes the decision making process where we acknowledge our inability to calculate the best possible option and instead opt for the first desirable choice which we believe will be ‘Good Enough’.

Of course, because we have been told stories since a very early age, and their lessons are very simple for us to recall and understand, they tend to be at the top of our minds when faced with too much choice, whether it is choosing between universities, toothpastes or potential mates.

Stories build community

When we choose to join groups, those groups help to define our sense of self, the values to which we subscribe and the type of person we believe or desire ourselves to be. In fact, psychologists have found that even if we are randomly assigned to groups, we feel an intense sense of belonging, loyalty and bias toward our new peers.

There are three processes that shape and define our choice of group13. The first is known as Categorisation, and describes the way humans categorise objects in order to understand them: I am Welsh, he is Hindu, we are marketers. The second is Identification, where we identify groups that we perceive ourselves to belong to; however, the extent of our belonging to any group tends to depend on the context of a situation. The third is Comparison, where we imbue members of our group and our shared ideologies with more value than those of other groups.

Clearly, stories are used in all three of these stages of defining self and group identity. Consider, for example, whether a person categorises and identifies themselves as American. Bound up in this belonging will be an understanding and interpretation of the noble intentions of the Founding Fathers, the heroism of Davy Crockett and the Alamo and the democratic rags-to-riches success stories of Lincoln, Rockefeller and Carnegie. All these elements of the American Dream define a set of values and beliefs that allow for positive comparison with other groups, and even give an insight into the way a “true patriot” ought to behave.

As mentioned, these group identities are more or less fluid depending circumstances: to continue the example above, the strength of a person’s feeling of belonging to America will be affected by current events.

Happily ever after

Stories may well be hardwired into our DNA. Stephen Pinker, the renowned evolutionary psychologist, argues14 that fiction and literature developed in early man as an instructional tool, to help us avoid early death and mistakes in our attempts at reproduction. He says that stories such as Romeo and Juliet, Oedipus and The Scarlet Letter allow us to project future consequences of our actions and hence avoid making mistakes in the present. In this way, stories can be seen as an essential human function, fulfilling the most basic of our needs: that of continuing survival.

Stories have been an integral part of being human since the invention of language. They are clearly here to stay.

13 “An integrative theory of intergroup conflict” by Tajfel, H. and Turner, J. in S. Worchel, W. G. Austin (Eds), The social psychology of intergroup relations. Monterey, Brooks/Cole.14 Pinker, S. (2006) “The biology of fiction.” In R. Headlam-Wells (Ed.), Human nature: Fact and fiction. London: Continuum

THE IMPORTANCE OF AUTHENTICITY

The proliferation and fragmentation of media, the breakdown in corporate trust and the constant feedback chatter of the internet mean that brands must now constantly strive to create an authentic voice and an authentic dialogue with their customers.

Many brands have realised that their category’s most knowledgeable customers are the most vociferous, and combined with the connectivity of social networks, they now wield an unprecedented power. Never has a brand’s ability to “walk the walk and talk the talk” been more important.

At Redwood, we employ editorial specialists who have spent their careers creating content that reflects their passion. For our car clients, we employ automotive specialists, for our retail clients, health and beauty and fashion specialists and so on.

This means that each editor is an expert in their sector: not only do they know and understand our clients’ brands and products, but also they have an intimate knowledge of the competitor brands and products. Our editors have backgrounds in news-stand magazines so they are expert in communicating with customers in their own language, at length; many are so involved in their specialists fields that they scrupulously maintain their own blogs.

This experience means that editors are able to converse with customers on an adult-to-adult basis, building trust and rapport between client brand and customer.

Creating thousands of words per year with the purpose of engaging and inspiring customers at length means that editors become expert in creating an authentic tone of voice, vocabulary and visual language for a brand.

THE IMPORTANCE OF DIGITAL BRANDED CONTENT

In 2006, Google made $10.5 billion in advertising revenue, principally in driving web surfers to e-commerce sites. In fact, estimates suggest two-thirds of internet advertising spend in Europe (and a higher percentage in the US) is solely aimed at driving traffic to commercial web sites. Considering that these figures do not account for above- and below-the-line advertising aimed at driving web traffic, there is clearly a vast and rapidly expanding market in driving traffic to advertisers’ web sites.

But, currently, it seems, little time or money is being spent by advertisers on understanding and directing the behaviour of visitors when they arrive at web sites.

Amazingly, despite the vast amount of readily available data on the surfing habits of site visitors, some advertisers seem unaware or unwilling to learn about what keeps them surfing a web site, what makes them return, makes visitors buy from a web site, and what makes them return to buy again.

Happily, there have been a number of academic studies – and a few commercial ones – that have investigated these crucial questions.

The importance of selling off the (web) page

Forrester Research reported in 1999 that for over 70% of web sites, less than 2% of visitors were converted to purchasers; the typical variance was between 1% and 4%. Boston Consulting Group reported a figure of 3% a year later.

The reason for this percentage is that most web site visitors are not there to simply buy, they have a number of reasons for visiting.

Moe & Fader15 (2003) classified online shopping behaviour patterns into 4 categories:

1. Directed-Purchase visitsHere, the visitor knows what he/she wants and has a clear need for it. Often these visits relate to commodity / ‘known entity’ products like books and groceries, and have a high rate of conversion to sale(s) in the short term.

2. Search and Deliberation visitsHere, the visitor knows what he/she wants and plans a purchase in the future. These visits are for information gathering, to enable informed comparisons between similar products. The visitor may revisit the web site several times prior to conversion (or non-conversion).

3. Hedonic Browsing visitsHere, the visitor is shopping for the pleasure of it: window shopping. In these visits, purchases will be on an impulse basis and often stimulated by the richness of the content displayed on the site. Hence, these visits may on occasion produce efficient short-term conversions to sale(s).

15 “Buying Searching or Browsing: Differentiating between online shoppers using in-store navigational clickstream”, Journal of Consumer Psychology, 13 (1&2), 29-40

4. Knowledge Building visitsHere, the visitor is building a bank of product and/or market information for some time in the future, when this information may be useful. The purpose of this process is to reduce the amount of searching required in the future, should the visitor require the product.

Moe found that almost 60% of visits to the web site she analysed (a nutrition product retailer, selling vitamins, dietary aids etc.) were Hedonic Browsing visits, and so it is little wonder that Hausman16 found that impulse buying accounts for 30-50% of all retail purchases, with social psychologists17 finding that products which project a person’s self-image (e.g. clothes) being especially likely to be bought on impulse. The importance of immediate engagement

Economists – and plenty of laypeople – have noted that a main difference between internet shopping and real-world shopping is that there is no “opportunity cost” to a consumer in shopping around online. That is, there is almost no time or effort involved in comparing multiple products, prices and outlets online, as compared to, say, a consumer walking to the shop next door to the one they are already in. The logical conclusion to this observation is to expect lowest price to be the main determining factor of which web site achieves a consumer’s purchase, but many studies have proved this does not happen.18

The reason for this irrational behaviour is what mathematicians call the power law of practice, whereby familiarity with a particular task (in this case surfing a particular web site) increases the speed at which a person performs that task at an exponential rate. This means loyalty to a web site saves a user time; indeed, one study19 found that 70% of music and book shoppers and 42% of travel shoppers were loyal to one site. So being able to draw in an audience and form an emotional engagement on first visit will pay big dividends.

One study20 found that even a seemingly minute change in web site design affects users’ emotional states and likelihood to buy. Simply changing the wallpaper (i.e. background) to a car web site between either a money theme or safety theme significantly changed users’ opinion of which of those two factors were most important when buying a car. Interestingly, not one of the respondents consciously recalled the wallpaper when prompted. First impressions really do count.

16 (2000), “A multi-method investigation of consumer motivations in impulse buying behaviour” Journal of Consumer Marketing, 17(5), 403-41917 Dittmar and Beattie (1998) “Impulsive and Excessive Buying Behaviour”18 see for example: Degeratu, Rangaswamy and Wu (2000); Lynch and Ariely (2000); Wu and Rangaswamy (2003)19 Johnson et al (2004) “On the depths and dynamics of online search behaviour” Management Science, 50 (3) 299-30820 Mandel, N and Johnson, E (2002) “When Web Pages Influence Choice: Effects of Visual Primes on Experts and Novices” Journal of Consumer Research, volume 29, 235–245

The importance of continuing engagement

As anyone who has spent hours on an internet-related task when they intended to take only 15 minutes will tell you, time can be distorted when you are surfing the internet. Psychologists call this state, when a person “loses themselves” in a task, ‘flow’ or ‘presence’, and studies21 show that engaging web content is what induces this state. As you would expect, inducing this state makes users remain at a web site for longer, viewing more products, which of course makes them more likely to be converted into buyers, and higher spenders when they do buy22.

Great content also has been shown to be the most important factor in whether users return to a site a later date23 and how frequently they return, which, as you would expect, correlates to their likelihood to but again and spend more again24.

Even in a business-to-business environment, where rational, hard-headed commercial decisions would be expected, content makes a huge difference. In a 2005 study of 1,400 internet users by the Chief Marketing Officer Council and KnowledgeStorm, it was found that 89% of purchase decisions were affected by online content. 33% of respondents said that online content has “a major impact on their vendor preference”, and a further 56% said that online content had a moderate effect. But brands must be careful as to the nature of this content as 53% of respondents cited “hype and puffery” as damaging to the credibility of site’s content.

Considering that almost $6 billion was spent on search engine marketing in North America alone in 2005 (a figure expected to double by 2010), the overwhelming body of research conducted so far into how to sell products online suggests that companies would do well invest a proportionate amount of time and money on great content when users finally arrive.

21 see for example: Klein, L. R. (2003) “Creating virtual product experiences: the role of telepresence” Journal of Interactive Marketing, 17 (1) 41-5522 Buckinx and Van den Poel, Predicting Online Purchase Behaviour, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics23 Srinivasan et al (2003)“Customer loyalty in e-commerce: an exploration of its antecedents and consequences”, Journal of Retailing, 78, 41-5024 Balague and Lee (2005)“Dynamic Modelling of Web Purchase Behaviour and E-mailing impact by PetriNet”, Paris School of Management; and Johnson, e. et al (2003)“Cognitive Lock-In and the Power Law of Practice”, Journal of Marketing, 67(2), 62-75

How branded content can drive internet revenues – a working example

Using industry norm statistics

If your online traffic-driving marketing spend = £1,000,000

And delivers unique visitors @ 50p each = 2,000,000 visitors

And you convert 3% of them to buy from you = 60,000 new customers

Therefore, your cost per acquisition = £16.66

But if you invest £50,000 in improved content to increase conversion by 0.25%

Your online traffic-driving marketing spend = £950,000

And delivers unique visitors @ 50p each = 1,900,000 visitors

And you convert 3.25% of them to buy from you = 61,750 new customers

Therefore, your cost per acquisition = £16.19

(Of course, this example does not include the lifetime value of those extra customers)

SOME EXAMPLES OF REDWOOD’S INSPIRING CONTENT AND INSPIRING RESULTS

Boots Parenting ClubIndispensable advice for mums

Launched in 2005, the Boots Parenting Club (BPC) began as mailed marketing programme aimed at pregnant mothers. Members can join in-store and online and split by four life-stage specific segments, ranging from pregnancy to raising toddlers.

BPC quickly grew, and in addition to four magazines and two mini-magazines, Redwood now produce 29 segmented emails sent at least monthly and a web site updated daily with bespoke content, offers and advice.

BPC content is written by parents for parents, with a warm tone of voice that sets it apart from the competition. Our writers and healthcare experts (including a midwife, GP and pediatrician) are passionate about parenting, features combine empathetic humour and tell-it-like-it-is honesty with an authoritative approach that underpins the trust and expertise of the brand. The friendly tone of the copy is supported by an engaging style of imagery, with dynamic lifestyle photography (rather than impersonal studio) and quirky illustration.

The commercial aim of BPC is to inspire readers to shop at Boots for all their parenting needs. Our achievement has been to create a seamless blend of product and editorial, showcasing a huge range of baby products while establishing Boots as the UK’s most trusted source of advice during pregnancy and early parenthood.

BPC has been an extraordinary success by any measure. One in three pregnant women is now a member: a total membership of over 800,000, with the four magazines reaching more parents that the combined circulation of the top 6 parenting titles.

BPC members spend an average 74% more in store than Boots shoppers with young children who are not members. Boots Parenting Club is credited with delivering £16 million of incremental sales within Boots stores.

BPC is also a huge success for brands that supply Boots, which helps explain why the programme is 100% supplier funded.

Given these results, it’s not surprising that Boots Parenting Club was voted Best Publishing Solution of the Year at the 2007 APA Effectiveness awards.

Land Rover Onelife magazineA passport for adventure

Onelife is the leading global communication to capture Land Rover’s contemporary brand ethos and take customers on a unique journey into the new world of Land

Rover. The magazine captures the essence of adventure in the 21st century and builds an ongoing emotional connection with customers.  

The Land Rover brand is constantly evolving and modernising. The traditional associations of the brand – the English hunter in his country manor – have shifted into

the 21st century and today Land Rover is now also associated with art, fashion and cutting edge design.

The magazine embodies the essence of aspirational adventure and brings it alive in print through its eclectic mix of travel and personal stories to create a pure and uncompromising expression of the Land Rover experience.

In 2006, an entire issue was devoted to the concept of adventure. ‘The adventurous issue’ embodied adventure in every aspect of the magazine, from content to design, reflecting the ‘Go Beyond’ philosophy that is at the very heart of Land Rover. Preconceived notions of adventure were stretched to demonstrate that everyone’s perception of adventure is different – and a Land Rover can adapt whatever your adventure may be.

The magazine clearly achieves what it sets out to do and has been a key element in developing a strong brand image for Land Rover – 85% of readers agree that Land Rover is modern and up to date, 93% agree that Land Rovers have the best off-road capabilities and 69% agree that the magazine conveys a sense of adventure.

Onelife goes further to add value for readers, generating excitement and enjoyment around the ownership of a Land Rover and inspiring them to take action – 53% of readers have done something as a result of reading the magazine, from speaking to friends to visiting a website.

Onelife magazine is renowned for its excellence and has won several industry awards including the APA Customer Magazine of the Year (2006), as well as the APA Most Effective Automotive Title (2006).

Source: APA Advantage Study, December 2006

NSPCC Your Family magazineA unique and successful approach to positive parenting  The NSPCC’s Full Stop campaign has been highly successful and is at the very heart of the brand – its single aim is to end cruelty to children. In 2004, the NSPCC wanted to expand their remit from just preventing cruelty towards children to also being seen as a trustworthy supplier of positive parenting advice. Focusing on positive parenting to prevent child abuse before it begins; Your Family became the cornerstone of this new message.

Your Family is an engaging, empowering and entertaining magazine from the NSPCC that helps mums and dads understand how to be more positive in their parenting approach, as well as promoting better communication with, and behaviour towards, babies and children.  The primary objective of the magazine is to raise parents’ and the wider public’s understanding of and attitude towards child behaviour, inspiring parents to become more confident and positive in their parenting approach and improving communication between parents and children. In particular, the magazine aims to target more disadvantaged parents that are lacking the parenting support that is often taken for granted.  Every inch of the magazine works towards this central objective. The look and feel resembles that of a celebrity-weekly, which our research has shown appeals to the target audience. Strategically, the tone of voice is informative and empowering, rather than patronising, giving parents the confidence to try new methods of positive parenting.  The editorial works hard to create a sense of community, as we know that parents value honest advice from other parents, another example of the adult-to-adult conversation at which magazines are so uniquely adept. Reader’s tips and letters are always featured in the magazine and the reader panel ensures that all parenting concerns and needs can be identified.  The ‘Family Time’ section encourages interaction between parents and children and provides ideas and inspiration for family days out, recipes to eat together, craft ideas to make and toys to play with. Features subtly tackle the more challenging issues such as domestic violence, emotional abuse and neglect – how to cope and what to do if you spot the signs in another family.  Research has supported the success of delivering the NSPCC’s message to parents. 59% of readers say that the magazine has made them more aware of the positive parenting message – the strength of the message increases the more issues of the magazine are read.  The broad appeal of content means that there is something to learn for everyone. Indeed, nearly every reader (90%) says they have picked up ideas after reading Your Family. The magazine has also effectively made readers more aware of the NSPCC and positioned the brand to be more engaging – 42% of say that their opinion of the NSPCC has improved after reading Your Family.

 The success of Your Family magazine has been recognised and acknowledged by the APA and the magazine was awarded the most effective consumer publication (non retail) in 2006.   

Source: Magazine Readership Survey, December 2006

REDWOOD FILM: LAND ROVER (and beyond)

How would you like to drive across the Sahara desert, scaling 300-foot sand dunes in hot pursuit of a total solar eclipse? Or meander north along the China-Tibet border in search of the mythical lands of Shangri La? Or even try to negotiate the notorious Bolivian Death Road, through waterfalls and impenetrable fog, with 3,000-foot sheer drops on one side?

OK, perhaps not that last one.

Fortunately, you don’t have to risk life and limb in search of these thrills because Redwood have already filmed it for you. As part of the Go Beyond internet TV project, we’ve already risked life and limb on four continents in order to bring Land Rover’s brand proposition of Adventure to life for a global audience.

The films are set in some of the most extreme locations on Earth so conditions are always tough for the crew. That’s why we make sure we have a team of highly accomplished professionals on hand, bringing their experience of documentary filming with the BBC and other major UK networks, to get the job done.

And the end result? A range of beautiful and gutsy documentary-style films which not only reflect the capability of Land Rover vehicles and the worldly authenticity of the brand, but also encourage viewers to get out into the real world and experience some adventure for themselves.

BOXOUT…and the thrills of bleeding a radiator

To see the films go to www.gobeyond.tv, the films are: LIBYA ECLIPSE CHASERS, THE ICE ROAD, THE SEARCH FOR SHANGRI-LA and BOLIVIA DEATH ROAD. We’re adding more all the time, so visit often!

We also make a vast variety of genres of films for our clients:

For the NSPCC’s positive parenting programme – spearheaded by our magazine, Your Family, we’ve created three Blue Peter-style “Make It” films. These films encourage parents to spend quality time with their children making craft projects together; they’re both fun and educational! So if you’d like to learn how to make a cool Castle Fort, Snow Globe or Floppy Ears dog birthday card, see snippets of them at our web site: www.redwoodgroup.net; or on the Your Family web site from February 2008.

For BT’s small/medium enterprises service, BT Business Insight, we create 2 films every quarter, giving practical advice, case studies and interviews with successful entrepreneurs. See them at: www.insight.bt.com

For British Gas’s energy efficiency programme, we’ve created two fascinating films giving expert advice to consumers on how they can both save money and the environment. See them at: www.energy-savers.co.uk

ABOUT US

Founded in 1983, our roots are in newsstand titles, where we launched Top Gear, Homes & Antiques, Gardeners’ World and Good Food — all for the BBC. Today, we use these consumer magazine skills for our clients. In 1994, we joined the AMV Group – now a part of Omnicom – which allows us to offer clients the additional benefits of working with a major agency network.

AWARDS

In the past 12 months Redwood has been nominated for, and won, more awards than at any other time in our history. Awards are important because they highlight creativity and effectiveness. More importantly they are judged by our peers in the industry, both competitors and marketers, and so are a strong endorsement of the quality of our work.

In 2006 and 2007 Redwood was awarded Customer Magazine Publishing Agency of the Year by Marketing magazine for our record of new business growth and marketing effectiveness.

At our industry Oscars, the Association of Publishing Agencies (APA) Effectiveness Awards we took away no less than six awards in 2007.

Customer Publishing Solution of the Year: Parenting Club (Boots)Most Effective Membership Title: Parenting Club (Boots)Most Effective Business-to-Business Title: Contact (Royal Mail)International Publication of the Year: Onelife (Land Rover)Designer of the Year: Tan Parmar – LIV (Volvo)Editor of the Year: Zac Assemakis – Onelife (Land Rover)

At the inaugural APA Creative Awards 2007, Redwood won two awards, including the Overall Creative Solution Award.Best Photography: LIV (Volvo)Best Overall Creative Solution: LIV (Volvo)

At the 2007 Magazine Design Awards Redwood won two awards.Best Designed Business-to-Business Title: Contact (Royal Mail)Best Use of Photography: Onelife (Land Rover)

And at the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) Redwood was awarded the Green Initiative award 2007 for its work with Royal Mail.

Redwood's editors have won three BSME awards for Customer Magazine Editor of the Year.

In the last seven years we have won the prestigious PPA Customer Magazine of the Year five times.

SOME OF OUR U.K.CLIENTS AND HOW LONG WE’VE WORKED TOGETHER

Marks and Spencer since 1987Volvo since 1994Boots since 1994Land Rover since 1999Fabric since 2001

CONTACT DETAILS